Avalanche Lose Erik Johnson For 6 – 8 Weeks
It appears to be going from bad to worse in Denver as the Colorado Avalanche, already dead last in the league with just 19 points, will now have to manage without their best defenseman for 6 – 8 weeks, writes Rick Sadowski of NHL.com. Erik Johnson suffered a broken fibula during the second period of the team’s 3 – 0 shutout loss to Dallas Saturday night.
Johnson, the top overall draft selection in the 2006 draft, has tallied 11 points in 23 games for the Avalanche this season. He is tied with Tyson Barrie for the scoring lead among the team’s blue line core while his 10 helpers lead the club. Johnson also ranks just behind Barrie in ice time, averaging over 22 minutes per game.
First-year bench boss Jared Bednar had been using the nine-year veteran defender on the team’s top pairing with Fedor Tyutin, according to Sadowski. However Tyutin missed Saturday’s game with a lower-body injury and is questionable to play in the team’s next game.
Avalanche GM Joe Sakic has already been dealing with questions regarding the logic of keeping his core group of players together and now has to address how best to replace his #1 defenseman. With just $1.3MM in available cap space, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to add a significant player via trade, even if one was available this early in the season. It’s possible the team will have to manage with internal options for the time being, further dampening their postseason chances.
It’s possible the team will recall Cody Goloubef from San Antonio of the AHL. Goloubef was acquired last week in a deal with Columbus involving fellow blue liner Ryan Stanton. Like Johnson, Goloubef is a right-handed shot and he also brings 96 games of NHL experience to the table.
Ottawa Reassigns Andrew Hammond To Binghamton
The Ottawa Senators have announced that they have reassigned goalie Andrew Hammond to Binghamton of the AHL. The move indicates that Craig Anderson will rejoin the team and should be available for the Senators road game tomorrow against Pittsburgh, as Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen tweets.
Anderson of course has taken several leaves of absence from the team this season in order to be with his family as his wife battles cancer. Despite that, the veteran net minder has had an outstanding season. He currently owns a 12 – 5 – 1 record with a GAA of 2.20 and a 0.930 Save %.
Hammond has started two games this season, allowing six goals in just four periods of hockey and stopping just 23 of the 29 shots against. He rose to fame during the 2014-15 campaign as he backstopped the Senators to a surprising playoff berth with a tremendous stretch run. Hammond finished the season with a record of 20 – 1 – 2 with a GAA of just 1.79 and a Save % of 0.941. That run prompted the Senators to award the then 24-year-old net minder with a three-year contract extension worth just more than $4MM. Unfortunately for Hammond and the Senators, he has failed to come close to replicating that success since signing the deal.
Hawks Reassign Schmaltz; Call Up Goalie Johansson
A day after losing starting goalie Corey Crawford for two to three weeks and being forced to sign an emergency net minder to serve as the team’s backup, the Chicago Blackhawks have made a move to hopefully solidify the position. The team has called up Lars Johansson from Rockford of the AHL to support Scott Darling between the pipes. In a corresponding move, Chicago reassigned rookie center Nick Schmaltz to Rockford. The related transactions were originally relayed by Tracy Myers of CSN Chicago via Twitter.
Crawford of course was diagnosed yesterday morning with appendicitis and underwent an emergency appendectomy at a Philadelphia hospital. Recovery times can vary but the Hawks at this point expect to be without the services of the soon-to-be-32-year-old for up to three weeks.
In desperate need of someone to backup Darling yesterday just hours before puck-drop, the Blackhawks inked Eric Semborski to an ATO. Semborski was a club player at Temple University and currently serves as a youth hockey coach in the Philadelphia area. While he didn’t get into the game, head coach Joel Quennville did say that he would have put Semborski in late had the Flyers scored a late empty-net goal to put the game out of reach.
Johansson is an interesting story. Already 29, he spent the first 10 seasons of his professional career playing in his native Sweden. An outstanding performance in 2015-16 while playing for Frolunda prompted Chicago to bring Larsson to North America to help add organizational depth between the pipes. Larsson went 27-6-0 with a 1.74 GAA and a Save % of 0.927% while leading Frolunda to the 2016 Swedish League championship. In 16 games with Rockford, he has a record of 6-7-1 with a 2.63 GAA and a Save % of 0.911%.
Schmaltz tallied one goal and four points in 26 games in his first professional campaign. The reassignment of Schmaltz leaves the Hawks perilously thin at forward with just 12 healthy bodies on the roster, though it does sound as if Jonathan Toews should be back in the lineup soon which will alleviate that issue.
The Hawks find themselves in this tight spot due to their proximity to the salary cap ceiling. By rule the team could have used former NHL net minder and current goalie coach for Chicago, Jimmy Waite, as the backup yesterday but as a former professional, Chicago would have had to have paid him a salary. With the team possessing less than $500K in space, they simply couldn’t have done so while remaining cap compliant.
Central Division Snapshots: Lehtera, Parise, Avalanche
In his latest chat feature appearing in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jeremy Rutherford tackles an array of reader questions yesterday. A popular topic for Blues fans are the ongoing struggles of center Jori Lehtera, who St. Louis made a healthy scratch for this evening’s game against Winnipeg.
Lehtera posted a strong rookie campaign in 2014-15, finishing with 14 goals and 44 points in 75 games. He followed that up with a 34-point campaign last season, a noticeable drop off in output but still enough to convince the Blues to ink the 28-year-old Finnish pivot to a three-year deal with an AAV of $4.7MM. As Rutherford noted, the Blues might have been better off waiting another year to prove himself but the team decided to get that deal done so as to allow themselves to focus on re-signing David Backes and Jaden Schwartz. With just seven points in 20 games this season it’s looking like that extension may have indeed been premature.
Rutherford also believes it’s more likely now that the team will leave Lehtera unprotected and available to be taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in next June’s expansion draft. He projects the Blues will choose to protect 10 skaters – seven forwards and three blue liners – but has Lehtera and Ty Rattie as two the team will leave unprotected.
Elsewhere in the Central Division:
- Mike Russo of the Star Tribune reports that Zach Parise is indeed healthy, according to the team’s bench boss, Bruce Boudreau. There was concern after the veteran winger blocked a shot in the first period of Minnesota’s recent loss to Calgary. Boudreau described Parise’s skating as “sluggish” and “methodical,” in post-game remarks, which led to the questions pertaining to Parise’s health status. The long-time NHL coach did sit down with Parise along with winger Charlie Coyle, and plans to do the same with center Eric Staal to discuss the line’s recent struggles. As Russo notes, the line is pointless in its last two contests and the trio combined for just two even-strength shots in the Calgary game.
- Lastly, Colorado GM Joe Sakic is sticking by the team’s core group despite a rough start to the 2016-17 campaign, writes Terry Frei of The Denver Post. The Avalanche are currently tied with Arizona for last place in the Western Conference and are seven points out of a playoff berth. With their season on the verge of slipping away, Sakic still expresses faith in his core – Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Semyon Varlamov, Tyson Barrie, Erik Johnson and Nathan MacKinnon – and feels the team needs to play with more urgency in order to get their season back on track: “I have faith in them. But to me, the start is not a core thing; it’s a team thing. I think you see we’re trying to hold people accountable. We know we have certain guys who can give more, and those guys know they can give more, but it’s not like it’s a whole thing. We’re not as consistent as we need to be. We didn’t win two straight Cups and have that leeway. We have to play with that urgency every night on a consistent basis to be successful.” Sakic’s reluctance to break up the team’s core played at least some part in the division between the GM and former head coach Patrick Roy. Unless the Avalanche can turn things around relatively quickly, it’s going to look like Roy, and not Sakic, was correct in his assessment.
Canucks President Trevor Linden Offers Thoughts On Team
In a lengthy Q & A session with Luke Fox of Sportsnet, Trevor Linden, president of the Vancouver Canucks, offered his thoughts on the direction of the team, among many other topics. The entire interview is well worth the read but here are a few of the highlights:
- When asked about the biggest positive so far this season, Linden spoke of the team’s youthful defense: “Tonight we’ll have the youngest defence core in the National Hockey League. Our oldest defenceman will be 26-year-old [Luca] Sbisa and [Philip] Larsen. Gudbranson’s 24. [Ben] Hutton’s 23. [Troy] Stecher and [Nikita] Tryamkin are 22. That’s a new group. We’ve rebuilt that defence.” Not only is Sbisa the gray beard of the crew, he is also the longest-tenured member of the blue line, now in his third season with the team. From that perspective Linden is spot on in his assessment that Vancouver has essentially rebuilt the team’s defense. But it remains to be seen whether this young group can develop into one of the league’s top blue line units.
- Interestingly enough, when discussing the defense, Linden also touched on the Sedins, Henrik and Daniel. The executive admitted there is no chance the team will trade their longtime stars, unless requested by the twins to do so: “Two guys that, quite simply, were just never going to be moved. That’s 33 (Henrik) and 22 (Daniel). They’re going to be here until they decide to not be here.” The Sedins are no longer in their prime but are still capable of producing solid offensive numbers commensurate with top-six forwards – Daniel has 14 points and Henrik 15 through 24 games this season. Dealing the twins would fast-forward the Vancouver rebuild tremendously given the quality assets they would be able to get in exchange. Of course finding a trade scenario that works for Vancouver would be difficult. With NMC’s in hand, it’s certain the duo would insist on continuing to play together. Not many teams will have enough room, even at the trade deadline, to accommodate the Sedin’s combined cap charge. Still, it’s a scenario Linden should not-so-easily dismiss.
Metro Division Snapshots: Williams, Calvert, Di Pauli
Now in the midst of his 16th NHL campaign, Washington Capitals winger Justin Williams has carved out a solid career as an excellent two-way player that excels at driving possession and one who is a proven playoff performer. In more than 1,000 regular season contests, Williams has tallied 251 goals with 387 assists while compiling a Corsi For % of better than 57%. Despite his past success, Williams finds himself mired in a deep slump this season, though as Isabelle Khurshudyan writes, the three-time Stanley Cup winner is trying to stay positive.
On the season, Williams has potted just two goals and four points in 22 games for the Capitals; a scoring pace which if maintained would result in the lowest full-season output of his career. But even at 35, it’s likely Williams still has enough gas in the tank to turn his season around. Last year, Williams tallied 22 goals and 52 points, totals which suggest there should be plenty of quality hockey left.
Khurdshudyan notes that Williams’ season to date can be summarized by a sequence during the Capitals recent tilt against the Islanders. Late in the first frame, Williams appeared to cash in on a cross-ice feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov but replays showed the puck crossed the line just after time expired in the period.
Williams’ struggles can be attributed at least in part to a shooting percentage well off his career rate. For his career, Williams has found the back of the net on 9.3% of his shots on goal. To this point in the campaign his success rate is just 4.1%. Williams is still generating shots near his career average – 2.64 per to 2.22 – which reinforces the belief that it’s likely just a matter of time before the veteran winger starts putting the biscuit in the basket again with regular frequency.
Elsewhere in the Metro Division:
- The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that they have activated veteran checking winger Matt Calvert from IR. Calvert, who had missed the past five contests with an upper-body injury, has two goals and three points in 17 appearances for the Blue Jackets this season. Rob Mixer, who covers the Jackets for the team’s official website, adds that Calvert is likely going to be in the lineup tomorrow night when Columbus travels to Arizona to take on the Coyotes.
- Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Thomas Di Pauli underwent back surgery today and is expected to miss up to 12 weeks, according to a tweet from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins official Twitter account. Di Pauli signed with the club as a college free agent this summer, spurning overtures by the Washington Capitals, the team that originally drafted the young center in the fourth-round of the 2012 draft. In his first pro campaign, Di Pauli has just one point, a goal, in eight games.
Atlantic Division Snapshots: Yzerman, Beleskey, Bjugstad, Bibeau
The Tampa Bay Lightning entered the 2016-17 campaign as a popular pick to emerge from the Eastern Conference to compete for the Stanley Cup championship. While it’s still relatively early, Lightning GM Steve Yzerman is concerned with the team’s inconsistent play, though as Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times writes, that concern is tempered by calm.
Entering tonight’s home contest against Washington, the Lightning boast a record of just 13 – 11 – 1 through their first 25 games and currently reside in fourth place in the Atlantic, seven points behind first place Montreal. If the postseason was to start today, Tampa would be on the outside looking in, one point behind the Capitals for the final wild card spot though Washington has played three fewer games. Despite their standing and the fact the team has lost four in a row, Yzerman is not interested in making a move simply to “shake things up.”
“If there’s an opportunity to make us a better team, I’m certainly willing to explore it. But I like our team. I like the character of our players. We’re very careful of the type of person we bring in and which players we move out. That isn’t going to change.”
The trouble of late, according to Yzerman, has been the team’s lackluster play in their own zone. As Smith notes, Tampa Bay has given up 19 goals over the last four games; a figure which could have been higher if not for the quality play of the team’s net minders.
It’s easy to understand Yzerman’s hesitation to try to solve the team’s problems via the trade market. At this point so few teams have the available salary cap space necessary to make more than minor deals.
If they do decide a deal is in order either at or near the trade deadline, the Lightning do have an appealing asset to market in goaltender Ben Bishop. Bishop, who has been a Vezina Trophy finalist twice in the last three seasons, is in the final year of his contract. With Andrei Vasilevskiy inking a three-year contract extension over the summer and presumably the team’s future starter, the Lightning could move Bishop to address other areas of need.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:
- Matt Beleskey of the Boston Bruins was knocked out of this afternoon’s game against Buffalo after absorbing a heavy hit from Sabres blue liner Taylor Fedun, writes Joe Haggerty of CSNNE. Beleskey suffered the lower-body injury late in the first period and his return was ruled out by the team soon thereafter. The gritty forward was a big-ticket free agent signing in the summer of 2015, inking a five-year, $19MM pact with Boston. This season he has struggled, scoring just two goals in 23 games for the Bruins.
- Struggling to find their way on the ice and having already relieved head coach Gerard Gallant of his duties, the Florida Panthers, under new bench boss Tom Rowe continue to tinker with the lineup in an effort to find some consistency. With Nick Bjugstad returning recently from injury, the team tried lining him up on the right side, instead of at his customary pivot position, to try to ease him back into the lineup. But after five games – and zero points for the 6-foot-6 center – Bjugstad is moving back to the middle, where Rowe feels he will be “more comfortable,” as Harvey Fialkov writes. Currently two points behind Washington for the second wild card slot in the East, Florida needs to improve their play if they want to qualify for the postseason for the second consecutive campaign and a return to normal production from Bjugstad would be a big help in that regard.
- Finally, with starting net minder Frederik Andersen battling an undisclosed illness and unable to practice yesterday, the Toronto Maple Leafs have recalled Antoine Bibeau from the AHL on an emergency basis, according to Mike Augello (Twitter link). Elliotte Friedman adds that while Andersen is still expected to play, the team wanted certainty just in case, and with the Leafs in Vancouver to play the Canucks tonight, Toronto acted early as a precaution. Bibeau has yet to make his NHL debut and it appears unlikely he will do so tonight. While he has no big league experience, the 22-year-old goalie has appeared in 87 contests over the last three seasons with the Marlies.
Stars Place Patrick Sharp On IR
The Dallas Stars, who have battled injuries to key contributors throughout the 206-17 campaign, lost Patrick Sharp for the second time this season. The club announced today, via their official Twitter account, that they have placed the 34-year-old winger on IR retroactive to December first.
Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News adds the Stars head coach Lindy Ruff has said that Sharp is back in the concussion protocol. Sharp missed a month earlier this season with the initial head injury. In 11 games this year, Sharp has tallied just a single goal and two points while averaging better than 16:30 of ice time per game.
Now in his 14th NHL season, Sharp has netted 270 goals and 583 points in 832 NHL games. He is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent this summer after completing the final season of a five-year deal he originally inked with Chicago. He carries a cap hit of $5.9MM and has a modified NTC which allows Sharp to block trades to 10 teams.
Ruff also said that Curtis McKenzie and Adam Cracknell will draw into the lineup tonight, tweets Heika. Cracknell has three points in 23 appearances on the campaign and hasn’t played since November 28th. He’s been a healthy scratch the last two games for Dallas. McKenzie, himself a healthy scratch for Dallas’ 6 – 2 loss to Pittsburgh on Thursday, has one goal and three points in 16 games this season.
The Stars have also been without forwards Ales Hemsky, Jiri Hudler and Mattias Janmark, among others, for much of the season to date. Veteran defenseman Johnny Oduya has spent the last two weeks on IR as well.
Sharks Reassign Labanc, Carpenter To AHL
The San Jose Sharks have reassigned forwards Kevin Labanc and Ryan Carpenter to the San Jose Barracuda, according to the AHL’s transaction page and reported by Curtis Pashelka (Twitter link). The moves leave the team with just 12 healthy forwards on the roster but with the Sharks off until next Wednesday, it allows the duo to perhaps get in some game action in the interim as the Barracuda have games tonight and tomorrow in San Antonio. One or both could be recalled in advance of Wednesday’s contest in San Jose against Ottawa.
Pashelka also adds that the reassignments allow the Sharks to bank a little bit of cap space ahead of the trade deadline. Currently the club has roughly $2.5MM in cap space but that includes nearly $3MM in relief due to Tomas Hertl being on LTIR. As a team so close to the cap ceiling, any dollar saved today can help give them enough space to add reinforcements at the trade deadline.
Carpenter, who scored his first career NHL goal on November 30th, has been a healthy scratch in each of the last two contests. He’s appeared in three games this season and is averaging 8:52 of ice time. He’s accumulated seven points in 12 contests for the Barracuda this season.
Labanc, soon to turn 21, has two goals and four points in 12 appearances for the Sharks. The first-year pro has tallied four goals and 10 points in six AHL games.
Oilers Place Nurse On IR, Recall Simpson
The Edmonton Oilers have placed defenseman Darnell Nurse on Injured Reserve (IR) and recalled Dillon Simpson from their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
It’s not clear what is wrong with Nurse, who hasn’t missed a game all season. Coach Todd McLellan told the media Nurse will be out long-term with a lower-body injury suffered in the Oilers last game, a 6-3 win in Winnipeg. McLellan said GM Peter Chiarelli will update Nurse’s condition in the coming days, as is the Oilers custom with serious injuries.
Nurse played 70 seconds more than his average time-on-ice in Winnipeg. He’s been much improved this season, and has five points in 25 games. Nurse struggled last season when he was forced to play top-minutes as a rookie.
Because of Nurse’s injury, the Oilers have switched up their defense pairings for tonight’s game against Anaheim. Andrej Sekera will pair with rookie Matt Benning; Oscar Klefbom and Mark Fayne will form the second pair; Kris Russell and Adam Larsson the other pair (pairs per Bob Stauffer). Simpson will serve as the seventh defenseman, with Nurse, Brandon Davidson, and Eric Gryba all on IR.
Simpson has yet to play an NHL game, but has already been called up once this season as insurance for an injured player. He has one goal in 12 games with the Condors this season. The 2011 fourth-round pick is considered an all-round player who doesn’t have one standout skill, but is just good enough at each part of the game. The Edmonton-native is the son of former Oiler and Hockey Night in Canada commentator Craig Simpson.